Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – The Hedgehog

Bundle Offer : Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – Pawn Structures Vol. 1 + 2 Herman Grooten is an International Master from the Netherlands, a renowned trainer with over 35 years of experience and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – Pawn Structures Vol. 1 Open-, Half-Open Files and The Pawn Chain In this series it's all about strategy for club players, explained in a simple way with clear examples! The idea is to focus on certain themes using specific pawn structures. The central question is: how can the pieces be manoeuvred into good positions and what should we then consider? IM Herman Grooten will offer rules-of-thumb and concepts to give clubchess players the necessary guidance to try and find the right paths in their own games. In this two-part course the emphasis will be on typical pawn-structures, ones that appear quite often in games and that will be very recognisable to club-chess players. Hence, the topics "Open and half-open files" and "the pawn chain" will be covered extensively on this video course. • Video running time: 6 hours 30 min (English) • With interactive training including video feedback • Extra: Model Games and Training with ChessBase apps - Play key pawn structures against Fritz on various levels Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – Pawn Structures Vol. 2 The Isolated Queen's Pawn and The Passed Pawn A new production in the "Key Concepts of Chess" series. The idea is to focus on certain themes by means of specific pawn structures. The central question is: how can the pieces be manoeuvred into good positions and what should we then consider? IM Herman Grooten offers rules-of-thumb and concepts to give club-chess players the necessary guidance so that they can try to find the right paths in their own games. In this second part the emphasis will be on typical pawn structures that appear quite often in games, and that will be very recognizable for clubchess players. For example, on this video course the topics "the isolated queen pawn (IQP)" and "the passed-pawn in the middlegame" will be discussed in detail. Because the IQP can appear on the board in many opening variations, it is worthwhile to study. The fact that sometimes a passed-pawn can be invaluable and can cause an astonishing effect will be music to the ears of the club-chess player. • Video running time: 3 hours 40 min (English) • With interactive training including video feedback • Extra: Model Games and Training with ChessBase apps - Play key pawn structures against Fritz on various levels System requirements: Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 1 GB RAM, Windows 7, DirectX9 graphic card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9 and internet connection for program activation. Recommended: PC Intel Core i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 / 8 or 10, DirectX10 graphic card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or better, 100% DirectX10 compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVDROM drive and internet connection for program activation.

Bundle Offer : Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – Pawn Structures Vol. 1 + 2 Herman Grooten is an International Master from the Netherlands, a renowned trainer with over 35 years of experience and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – Pawn Structures Vol. 1 Open-, Half-Open Files and The Pawn Chain In this series it's all about strategy for club players, explained in a simple way with clear examples! The idea is to focus on certain themes using specific pawn structures. The central question is: how can the pieces be manoeuvred into good positions and what should we then consider? IM Herman Grooten will offer rules-of-thumb and concepts to give clubchess players the necessary guidance to try and find the right paths in their own games. In this two-part course the emphasis will be on typical pawn-structures, ones that appear quite often in games and that will be very recognisable to club-chess players. Hence, the topics "Open and half-open files" and "the pawn chain" will be covered extensively on this video course. • Video running time: 6 hours 30 min (English) • With interactive training including video feedback • Extra: Model Games and Training with ChessBase apps - Play key pawn structures against Fritz on various levels Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess – Pawn Structures Vol. 2 The Isolated Queen's Pawn and The Passed Pawn A new production in the "Key Concepts of Chess" series. The idea is to focus on certain themes by means of specific pawn structures. The central question is: how can the pieces be manoeuvred into good positions and what should we then consider? IM Herman Grooten offers rules-of-thumb and concepts to give club-chess players the necessary guidance so that they can try to find the right paths in their own games. In this second part the emphasis will be on typical pawn structures that appear quite often in games, and that will be very recognizable for clubchess players. For example, on this video course the topics "the isolated queen pawn (IQP)" and "the passed-pawn in the middlegame" will be discussed in detail. Because the IQP can appear on the board in many opening variations, it is worthwhile to study. The fact that sometimes a passed-pawn can be invaluable and can cause an astonishing effect will be music to the ears of the club-chess player. • Video running time: 3 hours 40 min (English) • With interactive training including video feedback • Extra: Model Games and Training with ChessBase apps - Play key pawn structures against Fritz on various levels System requirements: Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 1 GB RAM, Windows 7, DirectX9 graphic card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9 and internet connection for program activation. Recommended: PC Intel Core i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 / 8 or 10, DirectX10 graphic card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or better, 100% DirectX10 compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVDROM drive and internet connection for program activation.

The Isolated Queen's Pawn and The Passed Pawn A new production in the "Key Concepts of Chess" series. The idea is to focus on certain themes by means of specific pawn structures. The central question is: how can the pieces be manoeuvred into good positions and what should we then consider? IM Herman Grooten offers rules-of-thumb and concepts to give club-chess players the necessary guidance so that they can try to find the right paths in their own games. In this second part the emphasis will be on typical pawn structures that appear quite often in games, and that will be very recognizable for clubchess players. For example, on this video course the topics "the isolated queen pawn (IQP)" and "the passed-pawn in the middlegame" will be discussed in detail. Because the IQP can appear on the board in many opening variations, it is worthwhile to study. The fact that sometimes a passed-pawn can be invaluable and can cause an astonishing effect will be music to the ears of the club-chess player. • Video running time: 3 hours 40 min (English) • With interactive training including video feedback • Extra: Model Games and Training with ChessBase apps - Play key pawn structures against Fritz on various levels

Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 1 is essentially a chess puzzle book, but not a typical one. It’s a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and his world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to introduce you to the world of “unnatural” tactical moves. Presenting examples of extreme beauty, no matter where they come from – be it online bullet or world-class grandmaster praxis – this book will cure your “selective blindness” by destroying the false notion of chess principles being a set of rules, instead of helpful guidelines. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement. 328 Seiten, gebunden, Verlag Quality Chess

Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 2 concludes a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to create the perfect chess puzzle books. This second volume builds upon the first, using games from the World Champions and their challengers. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement. This book also contains a special chapter with expert guidance on how to use chess engines. The engines might analyse precisely but they can also harm our chess understanding if followed blindly, so we must know when and how to use them. 280 Seiten, gebunden, Verlag Quality Chess

A new series? Absolutely! The idea for this came while writing the books in my other series ‘Understanding before Moving’ at Thinkers Publishing. This series covers the backgrounds of openings. In order to discuss the ideas of certain opening variations, I couldn’t help but explain the plans and concepts of certain middlegame situations in relation to their typical pawn structures. Before you know it, you’re already going pretty deep into the stereotypical maneuvers that go with those middle games. Since the books are primarily about the opening itself, I was limited to only giving basic explanations. Somehow this grated on me- if, for example, a position with an ‘isolated pawn’ or the so-called ‘hanging pawns’ had arisen, why couldn’t I say much more about it? What about the exchange sacrifice on c3 in the Sicilian, wasn’t the explanation in the discussion of the compensation of this exchange sacrifice too brief? And so, as I was writing, more cases came to mind in which I thought: am I not doing the reader an injustice by not recording what I know? I decided to make a list of middlegame topics that I came across in the books on openings that perhaps could be better, or at least elaborated further on. As a chess trainer, I was always constructing teaching material on the middle game. This was initially intended for the top youth in the Netherlands, whom I often took under my wing. Given the high level of many of these youth players, I had to look for striking, well crystallized examples and corresponding processing. On the one hand these were tactical assignments, strategic tasks, blind exercises; on the other, positions that they could play out among themselves or in a simultaneous game against the trainer, after which the game fragments were analyzed together. Later my activities shifted more and more to the growing group of club chess players who also needed chess training. In the past forty odd years I have developed training materials on several levels that may be of interest to club level players worldwide. That is why I decided to put these kinds of topics into book form as well. Although some of these topics have also been the subject of books, I hope to add value with a clear structure and a sophisticated selection of instructive examples. The subject of this first book is the hedgehog system. This is for two reasons. When I was working on my book ‘Understanding before Moving’ Volume 3- Part 2, the Taimanov, Kan & Richter Rauzer, I could not avoid also cobbling together a separate chapter on the hedgehog System. Because of the length of the chapter and in order not to lapse into lengthy explanations I limited myself to what was purely necessary. However, because of that, certain elements were left out. The second reason for putting this book together is that the hedgehog system is special to me. After my first introduction, I immediately became “hooked” on this trench work. Attempting a breakout at an unexpected moment after hiding patiently on your first three ranks appealed to me. What I did not get around to with the ‘Sicilian Hedgehog’, of course, are the positions that arise from various other openings, including the flank openings and variants from, for example, the Queen’s Indian and the Nimzo Indian. The strongest players in the world have the hedgehog in their repertoire simply because the underlying tensions in the position are ideally suited to playing black for a win. It remains for me to thank Daniel Fernandez for the translation. I’m also grateful to Jos Sutmuller for editing all the photo material and for the correction work. And Daniël Vanheirzeele who helped me with proofreading the book. I hope that the reader will enjoy working through this book as much as I have enjoyed putting it together! 360 Seiten, kartoniert, Verlag Thinkers Publishing

Open-, Half-Open Files and The Pawn Chain In this series it's all about strategy for club players, explained in a simple way with clear examples! The idea is to focus on certain themes using specific pawn structures. The central question is: how can the pieces be manoeuvred into good positions and what should we then consider? IM Herman Grooten will offer rules-of-thumb and concepts to give clubchess players the necessary guidance to try and find the right paths in their own games. In this two-part course the emphasis will be on typical pawn-structures, ones that appear quite often in games and that will be very recognisable to club-chess players. Hence, the topics "Open and half-open files" and "the pawn chain" will be covered extensively on this video course. • Video running time: 6 hours 30 min (English) • With interactive training including video feedback • Extra: Model Games and Training with ChessBase apps - Play key pawn structures against Fritz on various levels